Christmas Day

 So here's the set up.  Look how beautifully Dru wraps presents.  This is my pile of goods.

 Hahahahaha this is wrapped by me and is Dru's pile.
This sums up our personalities right here.  Dru's attention to detail and me?  Your just lucky you got something wrapped!!!  See that one ribbon ......................... that was done by my sister in law. 
Classic

 Emiko

 Yuki

 Masaru

Takeshi

So the kids set a new world record for our family and got up at 4:50am.
CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?
We told them "I DON'T THINK SO" and sent them back to bed.  But, of course, they didn't go back to bed.  They were in every 15 mins asking if they could open their gifts.  We kept telling them no until we folded and let them open their stockings.  That was a good idea as that kept them busy until 7am when we finally got up to watch them open their gifts.
What a crazy bunch of kids.  The thing is is that they didn't get to sleep until after 10pm the night before, so I knew that tonight they'd be out cold at an earlier time.  There's no way they can keep that pace up.

 Masaru's goods.
They get 2 gifts from Santa and the rest from us.
Masaru is easy to buy for as he likes things.
We always make sure we get him a couple of Dr Seuss books for his collection since he shares the same birthday as him.
We knew he'd like this lego book we found at Costco as well.  He's such a great builder.

 Yuki is tougher to buy for.  She doesn't really get into anything, so it makes it tough for Dru and I.  I'm grateful she's not fussy and doesn't ask for much, if anything.  It means that it makes things cheaper for us, which I'll always be grateful for.
None of our kids are into electronics and aren't asking for anything expensive.  Thank goodness.

Check out these cute girls in their China Town dresses.   Hahahaha Emiko's tummy cracks me up.  Little cutie. 

 She got this hideaway pet from Grandma and calls it Persia after a cat my brother tells stories about.  She's super excited to show him. 

Cute girl.  Love Yuki.

 Takeshi is the same, doesn't really care what he gets and is happy with little.  Love this guy.

 His attitude is contagious and I'm grateful he's a part of our family.

I couldn't resist getting the operation game as it was one of my favourites as a child.
We're starting the lego theme with him as well, but with how many lego's Masaru has, we don't need to go as crazy with him.  We've already had the talk with Masaru that his lego's are to be shared with his brother.  It's a tough thing, since Masaru is used to having all the lego's.  But he likes Takeshi's lego's as well, so can see the advantage for him at times.

 He had this Totoro hat made by his Auntie.  So cute.
She also got him legos.

 There was a 'Frozen' theme going on for Emiko.  She LOVES that movie and so it made it easy for us to purchase a few things under that theme.  She was pretty excited.

 She also loves Mickey and Minnie mouse.

She was happy.

She had a cute hat her Auntie made her but her most prized possession was chapstick in this little lipstick case.  She STILL is carrying that thing around and applying so much chap stick to her lips I'm surprized she still has some.  She's obsessed with "whipstik"

 Dru had already gotten a bike rack for our car as a gift, but that didn't stop me from getting him a couple more things.  He needed goggles to go with his full face mountain biking helmet.  They fit perfect.
He got some smellies which he loved.

He also got a bike stand so he can fix mine, his and whoever else's bikes a lot easier now instead of having ropes hanging from the top of the garage and balancing the bikes from that.  I don't blame him for being excited, that hanging rope deal looked like the pits. 

Then I think my gifts were far out shadowed by this gift from his sister Kristin.  It's a catbus from the movie Totoro.  Dru's always wanted one and has asked Kristin quite a few times to make it for him.  She always says no because it's a bugger to make.  But she folded like origami and made it for him and he couldn't be happier.  He was making cat noises and stroking it.
Total japanese anamae geek right here people.
It's perfect and has found it's place on our bed with it's mate Totoro which she made us the last time she had us I think, or maybe a birthday?  I can't remember.  She's too good to us that's for sure.

I don't know what else he wants.  Surely that's enough?  I can't think of any other characters he'd want. 

 So the theme to my Christmas this year was mountain biking gears and I couldn't have been more happier.  I got hooked up by Dru with some amazing things that I can't wait to try out.
Thanks babe.

Brooke also made us this beautiful Halloween and Autumn table cloth thing.  She so talented. 

Then check out this other talented sister of his.  This was my gift.
Oh yeah baby how do you like those apples?
LOVE IT!!!!!
It's already found it's place in our house.  I can't stop staring at it.

 We shared the morning with Brooke and her family, which we love to do.  It's always exciting to see each other open gifts, and this morning was no exception. 

 Masaru got some hero lego's from his Grandmother.  Batman is missing.  We found him later on. 

 Pretty cute right?

 It snowed the night before, giving us a white Christmas.  We were so grateful.  The kids had fun playing outside.

 Masaru has already made the car he wanted to with his lego's he got from his Auntie.  He's already made adjustments to it since this picture.
I love his creativity. 

 A man can never have enough German shepherds apparently.

What a great, great day.  We went upstairs and had breakfast altogether.  As usual, it was amazing food with great company.  We watched Dru's brother be surprized by and awesome gift from his wife and another gift we gave to Dru's Dad.
We played and talked and hung out and prepared dinner for later on that night.
Dru's other sister eventually came out and gave us their gifts and we ate together and hung out all night with each other.
It was a perfect day.  I loved it.
Our kids went to bed pretty easily that night and that made Dru and I happy.

Christmas Eve

We were planning on doing family pictures on boxing day and so in preparation for that, I got the boys hair cuts.  I think they turned out cute and am glad for a decent hairdresser since I suck at cutting hair apart from buzz cuts.

I was knitting furiously to get this bad boy finished.  With the help of Dru, we finally got it done.
Dru made the pillow inside and sewed the zipper on it as well.  I knitted it and he took care of the rest.  That's my man right there..............confident in his sewing skills.
Every Christmas it's the same, I start melting down and Dru cracks out the sewing machine and takes over like a champ and finishes my projects for me.
My hero.  Good looking, and mad skillz hahahaha
This pattern was tough because every stitch counted.  What I mean by that is I couldn't stuff up like AT ALL!!!  Also every row took me anywhere from 5 mins to 30 mins, so there's a lot of hours invested in this pillow.  At one stage I had to pull apart 10 rows!!!  That was around 5-8 hours worth of work.  I almost cried, but mostly swore.
So I couldn't do it with any children up or if anyone wanted to talk to me, meaning with Dru up as well.  So I could only do it when I was alone.......................in silence.  So you can imagine how much of that I had right?
I started it back in February I think and finished it last week.  Now some of this is my own fault.  I'm a procrastinator from way back, but it was also tough to find the time as well.
So it was a relief to finally have this done.  I was planning on doing two of them...........YEAH RIGHT!!!!
So I started another pillow and did a different but still pretty pattern.  I've almost finished it and it's been a week.  Note to self.....................think about patterns before you start them.
Man when all the kids are outta the house I'm gonna be a knitting fool.

Here the pattern is at the beginning stages.  It's about done now but I can't be bothered taking a picture of it.  It's a simple 5 cable knit.  I like it and most of all it's so easy I can knit in any circumstance, kids, talking, parties whatever.  So I'll finish this then send it to Brooke.

Every year I look forward to getting everyone's Christmas cards.  I use this door to hang them up.  I've made another row since this picture was taken.  It makes me happy to see all my mates up on one wall, well some of my mates I guess...................

Dru was able to come home earlier than usual from work.  We'd done most of the packing earlier on that week and then we were able to start heading down to Utah.
This year was a little different.  We didn't meet up with family this year for Christmas Eve and so did our own thing.
We stopped off in Chic fil a before we hit Bountiful and picked up some food for ourselves to have at his mothers place.
Our family love that place and so it was a great Christmas Eve dinner with each other.
The rest of his family were at other family houses and so we were at his mothers place alone.
We then started our little programme with each other.
We headed into the family room and started.  We opened with a prayer and a song and then watched a video of the Saviour's birth.  I love it.
We then read from Luke and had a talk about how things happened and what happened.  It was nice.

We then moved into the livingroom where the piano is and started a little talent show.  Takeshi sung to us as well as Emiko.  That was the cutest thing listening to those two.  Then Masaru and Yuki played us some piano.  That was awesome.
Here's some videos.

After we did that we bore out testimonies of Christ to each other and then sang and closed with a prayer.
It was really sweet and worked out better than I thought it was going to.

My mother had brought presents for the kids to Perth and we decided they could open those while talking to Grandma on skype.  So we got mum and Pete on skype and opened the pressies with them watching.
They were spoilt by my mother and Pete.  They got them some pretty awesome things.  We're grateful to them for always thinking of us. 

We then put the kids to bed and started the wrapping and placing and wrapping and placing of gifts.  The kids were so amped I don't think they fell asleep until way after 10pm!!!

We also walked over to Dru's brother's house and hung out with them for a while as well which was nice.  His sister came over too.  I had sent Dru's gifts to their place and so Dru walked home later on, while I stayed and wrapped up his stuff. 

We then finally went to sleep around 1 or 2am.  I can't remember!!!

More pictures of the wedding.

I know it's Christmas and I'll blog that one day, but my brother sent me some more pictures and I want them in my journal for my children and myself. 

So here we go........

Here are some of us just hanging out at the reception. 

Cute right?

So beautiful. 

I just can't stop staring at how good these two look. 

I'm bias but I've got a pretty good looking family if I do say so myself. 

Delwyn with Haley's brothers. 

At the Perth temple. 

Love these guys. This is the face I think Delwyn will give any boy who wants to take Aja out on a date. 

Love this. 

One of the very best sealings I've ever been to. 

The party. I love the bridesmaids dresses. They all look very co-ordinated. Well thought out. 

I'm not sure what was happening here but I think these candid shots are some of the best. 

How awesome is this shot of mum and Pete?

Dru and Gareth just chilling. 

The brothers. 

Cute cuzzie shot. 

Better shot of my awesome dress!!

Picture say a thousand words. 

Here's that picture of us I wanted. Yaaaa

Again, I'm very glad/grateful we went.